This, my story... (part 3 of 4)

This is why I began to believe that I was trapped in my body. And I still do believe this, actually. It’s the only answer that really makes sense: I’m stuck in a body I wasn’t made for. It’s a body that is dying in a time-constrained world, and I was designed to live forever. I was purposed to live without an end point, but I ended up with a certain, destined endpoint: death. So what’s a trapped person to do? Well, even animals know the answer to that dilemma: find a way out!

It seems us humans are much more accepting, however. We do try to extend the life of our dying bodies, and for this we are due some credit, and have made some headway, perhaps. Physicians, nutritionists, chiropractors, exercise...all may help us live an extra month, year, or even a few years. But what if you want more than a few years? What if your spirit wants to live in an undying body? Then what are your options?

Christianity has had the answer all along, I think. Yet I don’t find the pure answer easily within modern Christianity. Modern Christianity and many other God-believing religions seem to stumble by tweaking (at a minimum) the truth. People or groups of people take a piece or many pieces of truth and add to, or subtract from it – sometimes blatantly, and sometimes ever so slightly - perhaps mostly without even realizing what they are doing.

Yet all degrees of alteration, regardless of intent, cause destruction. I've been in conversations with many people who have been turned off by humanly tweaked versions of the truth. I can’t say that I blame them for snubbing these versions, but it distresses me to think that they may miss redeeming truth, altogether.

But back to the story… So growing up, I listened carefully to the messages I heard in churches. I wanted to be free from my body's death sentence, and I was hearing a saving prescription being proclaimed. So I accepted the message and staked my life on it. Yet after many adult years, and much heartbreak, I became the fourth grade girl again seeking the actual truth. This time however, the issue was much more sophisticated than dancing in gym class, and much more devastating. This time, it was a broken marriage, with a whole new realm of unacceptability and deviation from the accepted norm. With pain that touched many, to match...

Now I am not going to talk specifics, here. There is no need to, really, even though that is often what people want to know: “Who’s the transgressor?” “Who cheated on whom, because certainly someone must have cheated…” At the end of those conversations, however, because believe me, I’ve been part of dozens of them, what are you really left with? Still pain…still hurting individuals and families. Still, a marriage, that for reasons most people don’t know or don’t understand, can’t continue.

(part 4 next...)